I’ve been
working on this thought for a while - trying to find the best words to say it,
let me run this past you to see if this makes sense to you.
When
feminists talk about the patriarchy they are talking about a social, political,
institutional, legal structure that condones violence against women by
men. When men beat up or rape women they
are not doing it because they are mixed-up, or wounded, or they were pushed too
far and couldn’t control themselves.
They are doing it because they believe they are entitled to do it purely
and solely because they are men, and men are entitled to treat women like
that. They are acting on behalf of all
men – saying, to the world of men – ‘I’m doing it the way it’s meant to be
done.’
Yes - I get
that not all men are like that. I know and respect that there are men out there
who like and respect women and see their partners as that - not as punch-bags.
I get that. I also know and understand that men are abused by women too, emotionally,
physically, possibly even sexually. I get that. That’s not the point. The minute you get into that ‘Yeh, well, what
about men?’ thing, or ‘Don’t tar us all
with the same brush,’ you have made sure that there can be no further
discussion of these issues. It just becomes
competitive victim-playing. I get that if you are one of those men who respects
women, understands that his woman life-partner is a companion, not just a
commodity, and wants his daughters to
grow up strong and believing in their rights to exist as an equal, then it must
feel like shit to hear women talking about ‘All men.’ I get that your hackles rise up defensively
when women publish statistics about the numbers of women killed by their male
partners, or raped.
I also do
know that men are abused by their female partners, and even though they
are rarely in fear of their lives, the damage caused by emotional abuse is
still horrendous. There is an appropriate forum and manner to discuss these
issues and I’m glad that men are finding these.
But not in the context of comparing it to the violence done to women by
men throughout the world.
The best
way to make that point is to compare it to racism. We live in a world that culturally,
politically, financially, legally, institutionally gives whites a privileged
position in relation to people of colour.
That’s just a fact. I didn’t make
it like that, I haven’t done anything to reinforce or justify white supremacy.
I know I’m not a racist and I treat everyone with respect and never make
assumptions about them because of their race or culture. But I am white. I live in a white world. And
when I see on the news that some black guy has been shot by a white guy, just
for being black, when I read the statistics of the rates of imprisonment of
blacks compared to whites, when I see the results of social deprivation caused
by unequal treatment – it’s not the time for me to start saying ‘Yeh, well,
I’ve had my problems too, you know. I didn’t get to where I am in life because
of privilege and I had to work for it,’ etc etc. It’s not the time to start
whining about how blacks just assume I’m a racist because I did something that
upset one individual – all that crap.
Competitive
victim-playing does not change anything. That’s the purpose of it – to stop
change from happening.
When you,
as a man, say ‘Yer, but what about…’ when you are confronted by those
statistics, then you are condoning the status quo. You are allowing the only important issue to
be side-tracked, and that issue is ‘How can we change this?’
There is
only one response when I as a white woman see a black person being arrested and
harassed by white police, being beaten, killed in custody, any of that, just
because they are black – and that is to stand up and shout ‘NOT IN MY NAME!!’
There is
only one response by a man when he see the statistics about rape and violence
by men against women. Stand up and shout
‘NOT IN MY NAME.’
When you do
that you are saying ‘I, as a man, do not condone this.’
That is the
only way things will change.
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